[Bob Cole]

Interesting. It doesn’t make sense to me that the dimmer itself would determine whether a buzz-prone filament design is loud or not. I have two dimmers, of very different design and expense, and it didn’t matter which one I used; the Omni filament buzzed.

But to be honest, I’ve switched to using fresnels and Kinos, so it’s been awhile since I’ve used an Omni, and the buzzing could have been due to a bad run of Omni bulbs.

Thanks for the info. I’ll keep it in mind and keep an Open Mind about this.

Bob C

[Bob Cole]

All good advice here. But if your employer is Internet savvy, you have let the cat out of the bag. There is this thing called “Google.” If you put your name in, you — and any prospective employer — will find this note.

It may not be easy to get a job in this field anyway. So I’d urge you to follow your dream of this under-served sport video business ASAP, even while you conduct your job search. Certainly, don’t wait until you’ve earned the money for a new computer and FCS2. People have made money on YouTube with modest tools.

This is a judgment call on your part, but you may also be MORE interesting to a prospective employer if you bring in samples of your entrepreneurial videos, showing him/her that you have energy and the ability to follow through. Risk, and opportunity here: You may find a partner who can help you jump-start your sports video business while providing you valuable capital and experience — or you may find a jackass who will steal your idea.

Would I hire someone who intends to use my company as a stepping stone? It all depends on whether I think you’ll bolt next year or next month, and on how big a commitment I intend to make to YOU. i.e., will I be investing months training you to do something sophisticated, or will I be giving you directions to the dub room and a xeroxed piece of paper with the patch bay diagram on it?

There are lots of ways to be honest, but your question really is, “Should I be blatantly, perhaps offensively honest?” Think of two candidates, both of whom have the same goals. One says, “I want a paycheck and some experience so I can move on and do my own thing.” Another says, “I’m looking for a challenging opportunity in a field I love, to grow my skills and actually get paid to do something that makes me excited to get up in the morning.”

I suspect that BLATANT honesty is almost NEVER the best policy, even after you’re hired. In many workplaces, if the current employees were honest, they would say, “I’d rather do XYZ, but I need the money and this is the least bad way to get it.” They’ll never get out of the dub room saying that!

Good luck Tim — and everybody else out there now.

Bob C

[Bob Cole]

[Bob Zelin] “It’s tough to tell a client that their new $3000 LCD HD Sony monitor is a piece of crap.”

But I would LOVE to have been in the room when you did….

[Bob Cole]

[Terence Curren] “Your clients are used to how things look on their monitors”

That is quite true, and probably explains why I haven’t received complaints.

Probably better to be silent than to tell people like DRW’s client that their monitors are bad.

But at the same time, the reason we work to create great images is that they are more effective, and that would be true with our clients as well.

I’m thinking of a nice, relatively subtle link on a sigfile.

[Bob Cole]

Very useful thread, and great responses.

I’d just add, re: long term storage, that tape has its place. Reliable, cheap, industry-standard — there’s a lot to like about LTO tape. The Ethernet-connected Quantum LTO-3a would seem appropriate for your networked configuration. (I have the cheaper LTO-3, attached to one computer, which is itself networked, requiring two steps. But I have already experienced more peace of mind and ease of use with tape, rather than external drives or DVDs.)

If you need to backup tapeless video, that will throw all of the capacity calculations out the window. Depending on how many video files you need to store, you may even be in the realm of autoloader tape units.

Good luck, and let us know how it works out.

Bob C

[Bob Cole]

interesting. I tried upper and lower, and lower looked much clearer on playback. I was using the Kona LHe card to output SD to my 19″ SD Sony monitor, so I could be wrong.

BC

[Bob Cole]

Thank you Rafael. When I apply the de-interlace filter it has options for upper, lower, etc. Which is the appropriate setting for HDV footage from the Sony Z1?

I tried lower field, which looks sharper than upper, but I guess I need some reassurance, as I still don’t have the HD monitor I asked Santa for.

Thanks again!

Bob C

[Bob Cole]

LTO3a sounds great, and I wish I had the money to buy one. (The only hitch — and this could be trivial — is that writing to tape does take longer than we have become accustomed to with hard drives, so there may be some performance hit on your network with LTO3a.)

Although I would prefer the LTO3a, the cheaper solution I described above has been working well. btw – I’m using Retrospect Backup Professional software, which is more sophisticated than I am, but I’m slowly growing into it. I’m simply trying to back up projects, but the software tends to get into greater depth, as if I were doing regular system drive backups, with all the issues of deciding which files need to be updated, etc.

I got into the tape world because of the advent of tapeless media, but it is a great security blanket even for projects from tape. I will be able to store offsite a year’s worth of video, graphics, project files, etc. in one or two shoeboxes, on media that is more reliable and cheaper than a bigger box of hard drives.

I’d be very curious to hear from someone who’s using the LTO3a.

Bob C

[Bob Cole]

Thanks Ed. That does improve things, but again, after a somewhat longer time (30 minutes) AE / ProAn are frozen.

I was changing the depth on one of the text characters, hit “OK” to see the effect inside AE. Instead of returning to AE, I’m in a limbo-land. ProAn’s interface is mostly gone (the two big windows) and I see AE’s interface, except that the bar along the top is still ProAn’s (File – Edit – Object – Window – Help) and the program is unresponsive. I can move the current-time pointer along AE’s timeline, but the screen is black. Oddly, when I go to Force Quit, AE is not indicated as being frozen.

Appreciate any insight you could provide.

Bob Cole

[Bob Cole]

[Dave Friend] “What are you using to author these days?”

Due to laziness + familiarity factor: Still using Encore 2 on the PC – have FCS and CS 3 on the Mac but haven’t used DVD SP4 or Encore on Mac.